If Tiantian was extremely talented when it came to piano, then her school work was truly disastrous. Perhaps all of her talent was focused around piano. She was the bottom in class on the examination grades again. It was always been her father who was criticized during the parent-teacher conference but, this time, it was her mother who was there. She, too, was called out by the teacher and was told that she needed to pay more attention to the childâs school work and not to overlook it because they were busy.
Tiantianâs mother smiled the entire time and said goodbye to Shu Yan politely after the parent-teacher conference was over. She pulled Tiantian behind her and Shu Yan notice that Tiantian had to run a little in order to catch up to her motherâs pace. Shu Yan frowned a little when she saw that.
âMom, Tiantianâs mother is probably going to beat her again,â said JingJing seriously.
âTiantianâs mother beats her?â She looked like a very easygoing person.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
âMmhmm. Tiantian said her father rarely goes home and doesnât pay her too much attention. Her mother would always say that her father doesnât come home because her grades are poor and will beat her every time that she receives her grades.â In the past, JingJing had been envious of children in the city. She only learned that not all children in the city were happy.
âDoesnât her father come to the parent-teacher conference every time?â Why would he come if he didnât care much about her?
JingJing cocked her head and said, âTiantian said her father didnât come to the parent-teacher conference for her.â JingJing didnât know the reason that he came.
That made sense to Shu Yan. He was probably there to meet someone or to network. What a poor girl, having parents like that.
As much as Shu Yan felt bad for the child, Tiantian was someone elseâs child and there was nothing that Shu Yan could do about it. She sighed and said, âAlright, letâs go pick up your brother.â
âMom!â
âYes?â Shu Yan lowered her head to look at JingJing.
JingJing smiled but didnât say anything. She said âI love youâ to Shu Yan in her heart.
This time last year, as they didnât have a lot of relatives around, Shu Yan had traveled to Capital City with the children. This year was different. One of the reasons being that her relationship with Feng Zeyu had changed and the other one being that Shu Li was here now.
Shu Yan wasnât going to have Feng Zeyu go over to her place and leave the old grandma home by herself. She moved over to her house over there so they would have New Year eve dinner over at the old grandmaâs place.
Shi Li, too, wasnât planning on going home so Shu Yan had her bring her children over as well. The more people the merrier.
The old grandma found out that both Shu Yan and her sister would be over for dinner on New Year eve and smacked Feng Zeyu. âWhy didnât you say so sooner? I havenât prepared anything.â
âIâll buy the food and we donât really need to prepare anything else.â He had already cleaned the place up with the old grandma and they didnât need to buy the food till the next couple of days. Feng Zeyu couldnât think of anything else that they may need.
âThatâs not going to work. We had already cleaned the place once but it still didnât look good enough. We will need to clean it one more time. And we need to decide on the dishes. We canât be lackadaisical like we used to.â It was just the two of them in the past and they would just make a few dishes casually for new year but this year was different.
Shu Li thought about it some and agreed to go over to Feng Zeyuâs grandmaâs place for dinner.
âThis old grandma is not Feng Zeyuâs real grandma but closer to him than his real grandma. You should be nice to her if you want to be with Feng Zeyu. You donât really need to take care of her. Just have to go and visit her over New Year time or other holidays and pay your respect and Feng Zeyu will be happy.â Shu Li gave Shu Yan pointed.
âI understand.â
That was what Shu Yan had been doing. She would always send old grandma a gift on any holidays. All of the old grandmaâs clothing and shoes were from her. She would buy them when she shopped for herself; they didnât cost much.
Never mind that she was related to Feng Zeyu. Even without Feng Zeyu, Shu Yan would still try and take care of her after finding out her story.
In the past, it had only been JingJing and Tianbao. Now that there were also Niuniu and Pingan, the two children were super happy.
After dinner, the four children were playing with firecrackers in the backyard and the adults sat around the living room watching television and chitchatting. The noises from the children could be heard from time to time and, in between them, the old grandmaâs concerned cries......
Shu Yan did not go over to Hu Ruixueâs over New Year time last year and Hu Ruixue had griped about it. Shu Yan decided to go over there early this year.